What Trade Show Marketers Can Learn from Horror Movies (Part 3/3)

When planning your trade show exhibit, it’s easy to fall victim to habits that would make any good horror movie scream queen proud. We’ve discussed in Parts 1 & 2 of this series a few other horror movie clichés that marketers commonly fall victim to when planning a trade show experience.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations – you might just make it out of this alive. But there are still two more trade show marketing survival tips to read before you can guarantee your spot in the sequel (no promises what happens after that).

Do You Think We Got Him?
Characters in horror movies always fall victim to the same mistake: they take one shot and assume the bad guy is dead. Similarly, many companies assume that interaction at the booth is enough to secure a lead, failing to put in place proper follow-up strategies to develop trade show leads into actual customers. Your lead nurturing campaign should be swift, thorough, and tailored to your audience. If your follow-up campaign doesn’t include anything past a single blast email, you didn’t “get him,” and he may just get back up like the walking dead and take his business somewhere else.

Utilize the double tap: Companies who send multiple follow-up emails receive double the results for a little extra work and money.

A whopping 45% of companies do not track trade show and event leads as they progress through the sales cycle, making it impossible to determine ROI.

Use lead scoring to assign lead rankings based on specific qualifying behaviors.

Running Upstairs
While it may be comical to watch a character in a horror movie run upstairs to escape a murderous villain, it’s not that funny when you do the same thing with your trade show exhibit. If your booth has fallen victim to most of these horror movie clichés, it might not be in your best interest to continue what isn’t working. Rather than “running upstairs” and getting yourself into even more trouble, it might be time to completely reevaluate your strategy.

Sometimes it’s not enough to make small, measured; you may need to throw out your entire booth and start from scratch.

For many B2B companies, securing even a couple high-quality trade show leads who become customers pays dividends.

Working with a B2B marketing firm that can look at your business differently gives you a greater chance of creating a fun, unique, and memorable experience that will make an impact on potential leads.